To cope with the influx of tourists visiting Brockley Market, Travelodge has built a new hotel next to Deptford Bridge Station. Opening soon, it will soon be followed by a four star hotel next door, also under construction.

Deptford will never be Blackpool. Central London draws plenty of tourists who don't always find it easy to find somewhere to stay. They might not know anything about Deptford but go because its a short hop on the train to central London and its next to Greenwich.

With the amount of homelessness that this governments policies are creating and the legal restrictions on squatting plus round here being seen as a cheap area. It wont be surprising if this hotel ends up as emergency housing

There's a *lot* of hotel development around Greenwich at the moment - this Travelodge, one in the old police quarters over the road, two planned for central Greenwich (including the controversial market one), one at the cruise liner terminal at Enderbys Wharf, one by the Dome, and another Travelodge in Charlton.

Only some of these places will be ready for the Olympics, so it'll be interesting to see if the market can sustain all these places to stay.

Having a travelodge doesn't signify anything about a town. They are in expensive areas (Covent Garden, Central Edinburgh, and one slap bang in the middle of Bath etc) as well as poorer ones.

Travelling round the country, or searching on the website reveals how widespread they are. They have finally moved into SE London in a big way, and relatively late compared to elsewhere in the country. Same with other chains like Premier Inn.

Any visitors are a good thing for local pubs, restaurants etc, and locals as well as these business become more viable.

@ Lou, trying not to descend into seriousness here because its unwarranted, but it wouldn't take self awareness; a cursory search of your recent pronouncements would explain the humour in how you chose to cast your ballot.

The St. Pauls lot don't know what they're protesting about and go home each evening to their ciabattas and green tea.

The church are displaying olympic levels of tongue biting at the moment in the hope that they might get the message and move on. Instead the camp 'organisers' just keep 'welcoming' decisions to call off a full-blown eviction. Wish they'd get the message...

That is Travellodge Greenwich for sure, very likely to be an se10 postcode as Blackheath road mainly is, with the Deptford side of the creek and the DLR stop being SE8. interestingly, the development of flats attached to it and behind it are called OneSe8 or Deals Gateway but almost all of them have an SE13 postcode!

Breaking in to someone's house and living there as though it's your own - that's wrong.

Building an illegal site, in violation of planning laws - that's wrong.

Camping in central London for weeks on end - harming local businesses, disrupting a church. That's wrong.

Standing up for what is right is not always easy or popular. Folk like you will instinctively back those who've wronged. But I make no apology for standing up for the decent - but often silent - majority.

Lou these are piddly little wrongs which grab the headlines because they're easily displayed in simple imagery for the easily impressed.

The privatisation of profit and socialisation of loss by the bigger institutions havn't got that immediate news appeal (No pictures Geddit) though your Vince Cable seems to have something of a handle on it.

Sometimes there is a greater good, a derelict house that someone who desperately needs it, breaks into, isn't the worst thing in the world. If the owner comes back and asserts their rights then the squatter should accept it's time to move on.

I'd rather have Deptford High Street stay as it is than turn into something like Lordship Lane. Admittedly it has actually gotten worse over the last five years with the closure of some of the pubs and the explosion in betting shops, but at least it still feels authentic.

Go to New York, and Harlem and the Bronx are the most interesting parts as they haven't had the soul ripped out of them by the influx of the middle classes and the developers.

Sorry but if Deptford High St anything authentic, it is authentically grim.

It is quite simply a very poor high street in an impoverished part of London with a market that sells a great deal of sub-standard merchandise.

It has been like that for the last couple of decades.

I guess there a plenty of people who would like it to be better and talk up every new development. Maybe they have invested in the area and patiently waiting for it to take off so they can cash in.

The station is being renovated and there half way down an odd looking building seems to have taken root. But I it is always one step forward, one step back.

The High St is colonised by bookies, street drinkers very much in evidence and the area is beset by social problems. Creek Road has been developed and turned into a canyon lined by yuppie flats. The marketing makes much of its proximity to Laban Dance School, while at the same time boxing it in. At the other end we have a Travel Lodge tacked onto another gated community of yuppie flats used as a dormitory by workaholics who spend most of their waking hours at Canary Wharf. The smattering of artists holed up in plywood cubicles fashioned out of redundant warehousing has yet to engender a chain of vibrant bars and nightlife along Deptford High St. It is no Brick Lane.

Deptford is grim and I remain unconvinced that these developments will improve the area any more than previous efforts to tart the place up.

The Travelodge is not there to serve Deptford, but Greenwich. There are a chain of such hotels now, coming down the High Road - Novotel, Premier Inn and this one.There might also be the hope that business travelers on a budget will use this for Canary Wharf. But that's less likely.The good thing for the area is job creation.I love Deptford, but I don't think it can ever be a tourist destination.

Greenwich has had 2 big new hotels open there in the last 3 months, the Premier Inn and this new Travelodge. In addition there is a new boutique hotel being developed across the street from the Travelodge in an old warehouse which is currently covered in scaffolding. Its to be called 'The Greenwich'. Also another small boutique hotel is being developed above Bar du Musee, another hotel is planned for above the new market development, another hotel planned in a new development on the land behind the North Pole, another at the bottom of that new tower on Deptford Broadway.... how these can all be sustained is anyones guess.

I'm curious, Lou, as to whether your position on squatters would change if they were occupying a completely gutted dwelling? Someone posted an interesting piece on the alternativeSE4 website not long ago about the many totally empty, long disused dwellings in St Johns. There are so many people on the Lewisham council housing waiting list, and yet at least half a dozen _big_ houses are falling to disrepair. Ideally the council would do what they can to contact the owners and revive them, but they're not. So where do squatters fall with you in this instance (if they were to occupy the said houses)?

Lou, you are massively confused. No consistency in your politics. No deep analysis, just kneejerk. A simple minded reactionary. On the one hand you expose free market libertarianism, on the next breath you want the planners to clamp down on landowners building on land they own. you are up for people obeying the rule of law but advocate putative retribution outside the law. You really should stick to barking at people in the pub and leave the difficult decisions to those who understand the nuances and fundamental principles of how civilised, functioning democracies work. Dd you ever stop to consider that you are actually closer to the anarchist fringe along with those occupying the square than you are with the lib Dems or any other mainstream party? you're like an angry teenager.

THNick - do stop such leftist drivel. I'm no apologist for Lou but your post is ill-informed nonsense.

"how about running an finance industry which extracts a rent from society to create gross incomes for a few rich bankers? Is that wrong?" The private banking sector generates earnings. They are used to pay the wealth creators. There's nothing wrong with that. You may think our salaries are too high, but if you hadn't noticed us bankers are free market capitalists. When we employ people we do so for the minimum we can get away with paying. The market is competitive and we pay what we have to, but no more. Whether or not that exceeds what in your or my opinion is a "fair" salary for a given skill set is irrelevant. But if you strongly believe it is then it’s an easy problem to fix. Just flood the market with people of an equivalent skill set and desire to work the hours, and salaries will fall instantly. However you will not find such people.

"Or running obscene risks safe in the knowledge that you will get paid a huge amount if they go right and get bailed out by the government if they go bad. Is that wrong?" Again - we're free market capitalists. We don't think banks should be bailed out - it's a basic free market principle. Leaving that aside - it's the institutions, not the people, who were bailed out. Many thousands of bankers lost their jobs and most of their savings through the crisis. Many more of us saw our incomes fall to a fraction of what they were before. Your caricature shows a crass insensitivity towards those who suffered, and the banking community has suffered to a far greater extent than the average person on the street.

"Or setting up an entire economic system which benefits the rich minority whilst the median worker gets poorer. Is that wrong?" That would be, yes. But no-one advocates that. In reality what the free market has delivered is the rich getting richer and the poor getting richer. That's good all round. It’s a shame some misguided politicians encouraged both national government and poor individuals to borrow beyond their means, but the blame for that lies at the feet of socialism not capitalism. Again your misdiagnosis of capitalism betrays an ignorance of the facts.

"I'd rather have Deptford High Street stay as it is than turn into something like Lordship Lane. Admittedly it has actually gotten worse over the last five years with the closure of some of the pubs and the explosion in betting shops, but at least it still feels authentic.

Go to New York, and Harlem and the Bronx are the most interesting parts as they haven't had the soul ripped out of them by the influx of the middle classes and the developers."

If the owners of houses in St Johns want to let them fall down then so be it. Its a free world, they worked hard to pay for the houses, they can do what they want with them. By paying their taxes they have already done their bit for society, is 40% not enough without taking the spoils of their labour as well?

Personally, I believe population control is probably needed in this country. All of the major concerns of the lefties such as unemployment, housing, healthcare etc... would be eradicated were there not too many people in this country vying for too little space, in terms of housing, on our roads, in our trains, for our hospital beds, for the jobs etc... etc...etc... yet people are reproducing like rabbits and as far as I know immigration figures are as high as ever, despite record unemployment... I know, lets blame the government, or better still the bankers. Its anyone's fault but our own.

it is clearly someone elses fault other than mine - that's all i can say! defintiely nothing to do with me, or any of my friends - we just watch it all unfold on the news like some sort of rubbish soap opera!

My money is on the Greeks, or the Irish - someone really far away and nothing to do with me.

I suppose it could be the evil Bankers but it could be the workshy civil servants clinging desperately to their final salary pensions but who's worst? There's only one way to find out...FIGHT!"

My first point was not that bankers pay themselves too much, it was that the industry as a whole is able to make super-profits at the expense of the rest of economy. Banks do not create wealthe, they ought to facilitate the efficient allocation of capital to allow others to create wealth; how well they do that is another question.

In terms of finding enough people of an equivalent skill set, there is a growing body of evidence that those skills are much overrated. From Fred Goodwin buying ABN without bothering with DD to the risk functions at UBS and MF unable to stop fraud, it's clear that the banking sector has plenty of people who just aren't very good at their jobs.

As for my crass insensitivity towards bankers and their pay cuts, I was told a sad story recently a FoF lost his last job after just 6 months, including it's £400k pa salary. How I wept for the poor man who was forced to cope with just the £200k he had earned to date. It's not even close to being true that the banking sector has suffered more than society in general. Go and tell all the public sector workers getting laid off without having benefited from obscene salaries that you're suffering.

Finally, policies have not meant that the rich and poor have both got richer. Unfortunately I don't have equivalent stats for the UK, but the median worker in the US now gets paid less than he did in 1970. The top 1%, that's a different story. Basically average wages have stagnated since about 1980, whilst the wealth of those at the top has continued to benefit from increased productivity. And as for the crisis being caused by socialist politicians encouraging those who couldn't afford it to borrow, that ignores pretty much the entire reality of last 30 years, not least that the politicians have been pandering to finance for the whole period.

Giant Badger says "There might also be the hope that business travel[l]ers on a budget will use this for Canary Wharf. But that's less likely."

Actually it is fairly likely - the Novotel and Premier Inn are used by a fair number of business travellers visiting Canary Wharf. Greenwich is a nicer place to be overnight than the rather desolate Canary Wharf, especially if you are on your own; the room rates are considerably lower than one of the Canary Wharf hotels; and you are only a few minutes away from the office by the DLR. I would be very surprised if this wasn't a large part of the market Travelodge are trying to capture.

Banker and THNick, Wouldn't you both agree that unfettered free market casino capitalism holds in itself the seeds of its own nemesis;

And that the function of Liberal left govenments over the course of the previous century was to pick up the pieces and try to ensure by various means that it didn't happen again.(Bretton Woods and all of that)

And that the fundamental problem with the left both here and in the US this last thirty years is that through being in thrall to the markets they have abnegated responsibility for this difficult only child.

If not, the delusion beggars belief! Sorry to burst your bubble Nick but Deptford has been enjoying the ripple effect from West Greenwich and Blackheath for some time. It's not too much further on the DLR so there has been a great influx of Docklands/City money into the area. Witness the plethora of over-priced conversions and all the work going on around LABAN. It's not just for students.

The hotels are there quite simply for the Greenwich Market/Greewich Park crowd (once the Olympics does us a favour and buggers off).

IF it was self-deprecating regarding the area then I concur. For Brockley is truly a poor man's New Cross! Or should that be a rich man's Catford? It all looks the same to me...

....I don't profess to have special access to nicks brain but yes, I think we can assume it was tongue in cheek. Perhaps a special note should be added to future posts for those who have difficult spotting it.